Introduction to Evan's Notes
Why I'm doing this.
I’m excited to start sharing my detailed book summaries more widely.
More than a decade ago, I was feeling frustrated. I love reading, but most of the moments of clarity and inspiration I experienced while reading excellent non-fiction books were … fleeting. I would read voraciously, only to have the ideas quickly fade into vague impressions. Within 6 months it was up to luck whether I could actually remember anything. This feeling of loss was magnified when I spent 18 months living as a nomad (and gave away most of my library as I left my apartment in NYC).
So, I ran an experiment.
I started distilling the essence of the excellent non-fiction books that ended up on my (digital) shelf. I delight in detail, and it became fun to summarize the rich nuance that makes any good book truly three-dimensional. This takes a lot of effort - capturing and editing these notes takes easily three times as long as just reading the book itself - but my payoff was enormous. I still find myself able to recall ideas from 10 years ago, and my understanding of the underlying materials has improved just as significantly.
Oh, and I was left with an actual summary I could share with you.
Back in October 2021, I started sharing these notes while hosting an informal book club within Lenny Rachitsky’s awesome product management community (which, if you’re at all involved in product, is essential). I’ve received a strong positive response from sharing these notes. So here I am, following their encouragement.
If you subscribe, you can expect an eclectic mix of non-fiction books, with an emphasis on product management, business strategy, decision making, learning theory, and self development. As long as this stays free, my plan is start with weekly posts through the rest of 2022 as I get my archive into Substack, and then I’ll likely shift to monthly posts from there.
Upcoming summaries will cover:
Inspired
Working Backwards
Zero to One
Multipliers
High Output Management
Good Strategy / Bad Strategy
Atomic Habits
7 Powers
… and so many more.
Hope you enjoy reading these as much as I enjoy sharing them.
-Evan